


Monday Night. Football.

by SweetLateJuliet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Football | Soccer, Gen, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 15:25:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2233998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetLateJuliet/pseuds/SweetLateJuliet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: "John teaches Sherlock the basics of rugby (or football), for a case. Johnlock preferred."</p><p>Set post-S3, when many things are still desperately unspoken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monday Night. Football.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [consultingkaty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consultingkaty/gifts).



Sherlock approached Marylebone Green from the west, scanning the sparse knots of park-goers. Two rugby knockarounds, four kids throwing a softball, two courtships, a _plein-air_ painter, no sign of the Moriarty network… and John.

It was rare to see John alone these days, entirely relaxed, but he was now. He bounced (juggled, Sherlock revised) a football off one bodily plane after the next with a practised ease: thigh, shoulder, foot, forehead, chest. Sherlock slowed his steps to watch.

Even after two years abroad and that long again in a half-empty flat, meeting John at Regent’s Park rather than arriving with him still felt queer. But this opportunity to observe unseen was certainly welcome.

It was another minute before the ball bounced off John’s knee and flew farther than he could reach with a skipping leap and an extended boot.

The painter whistled at John. John looked up, smiling, and saw Sherlock. The smile grew. “Didn’t know you owned the kit. I brought shorts in case you showed up in fancy trousers.”

“It’s from an old case.” Sherlock tugged at the hem of the snug jersey. “When I wasn’t so well-fed, it seems.”

“All your shirts are like that. Even the new ones.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. John sniffed and looked down at the football. He rolled it over to Sherlock. “So, uh, tell me how learning to play football is an emergency.”

Sherlock poked at the ball with his toe, returning it to John. “I was unprepared for the physical aspect of coaching.”

“… Coaching?”

“For a case. Archie’s mum signed him up for a new football league. All the boys in it look eerily similar, their practices are suspiciously well-supervised, and there were a few features of interest about the coach. So I signed on as an assistant coach. I studied all the –”

“Archie?”

“Mary’s friend’s son, the page boy from your wedding. Do keep up,” he said with a half-smile. It was an echo of the days when John did need to keep up. Now they weren’t usually going the same places, and keeping up was beside the point.

“I _know_ who Archie is. I didn’t know you’d kept in touch. Wait, this is a case you took because a kid told you about something weird? Am I going to end up drugged?”

Sherlock felt a familiar tightness in his chest. It happened whenever he thought of those dangerous, brilliant days in Dartmoor with John. Or mornings in the Baker Street sitting room with John. Or… being with John. At all.

With some little effort, he rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t drug a new father.”

“Unless it was useful to the case.”

“It won’t be.”

“You think.”

“I know.”

“Huh. Well then. Shall I teach you some football?”

 

They started with simple passing and trapping.

When John got the cryptic text last week (“Must learn to play football. Critical. Monday evening? SH”), he hadn’t known whether it was a joke or for a case. On the hope it was the latter, he browsed coaching websites and negotiated with Mary for a free evening. Passing and trapping were the basics; he hoped he could teach those in one session.

In the intervening days, John daydreamed about ongoing practices with Sherlock while he wrote up patient documentation or pushed Violet in the pram. Truth be told, the daydreams often went further. Walking back to Baker Street afterwards for a drink, sweaty and comfortable. Laughing over wayward dribbles and missed traps. Putting Sherlock’s hand on his thigh to make him understand the motion of…

He always got disgusted with himself at that point. Too much like a porno and too little like reality. When had he ever learnt a football concept by laying hands on his coach? Why the bloody hell did he torment himself by imagining Sherlock interested in him in that way? Fucking depressing, really. _Focus on helping him learn what he needs to, Watson._

 

It should’ve been a significant task. Getting the feel for the way the ball moved, and the way one’s body made it move, was usually a knowledge honed over years. Sherlock, of course, proved to be an unusually quick study. He already knew all the concepts and terms (“I’m quite a competent _reader_ , John”), and his natural athleticism and intense focus let him internalise directions the first time John gave them.

“Move to the ball, don’t reach.” “Use the side of your foot. Don’t try to step on it.” “That was a toe-poke. Hard to control, right?” “Follow through.”

Sherlock grew garrulous as his skill improved, recounting his disastrous performance at his first practice with Archie’s brown-headed league and laughing at his own ineptitude. “Not my area at all, John!”

Within half an hour, John felt the first inkling of suspicion. A person didn’t just “pick up” a well-directed instep pass in twenty minutes, no matter how much reading they’d done. Was Sherlock lying about his football experience? Why?

When after forty minutes Sherlock made three one-touch passes in a row, John’s suspicions coalesced. Was this whole case a ruse? _Why?_

John decided to test his theory after Sherlock pointed out a few ways John’s own technique wasn’t textbook (“Isn’t trapping it like that more risky than using the side of your foot?”).

He teed up the pass and took a large step back. “You ready, Sherlock?”

“Of course. We’ve been doing this for almost an hour. Are we going to try –”

“Yep. Header!” John stepped and planted with his right foot, swung hard with his left, and drove the ball at Sherlock’s face. He watched for the inevitable perfect return header.

Sherlock threw up his hands – too slow. They opened defensively rather than curling into fists. He didn’t move out of the way. And he certainly didn’t meet the ball with his forehead to redirect its momentum. It slammed into his nose.

“Shit!” John ran to him as he reeled backward. “Oh God, oh my God, I’m sorry, are you OK?”

Sherlock pressed his fingers under his nose and checked them for blood, then pinched the bridge of his nose. He smiled with a fattening lip. “Neither bleeding nor broken, it seems. Was that an initiation ritual?”

“God no. I’m so sorry. You were doing so well at everything that I thought…”

“That I could do a header without being told how?”

“Mm. Nope. That you already knew how. That you’d…”

Sherlock laughed, loud and quick, then threw a hand up to his nose as it throbbed. “ _Ow!_ You thought I was putting you on about needing to learn football? That it was a secret skill and I’d give myself away with a reflexive header?” He shook his head, smiling behind his hand. “Why would I lie to you about that?”

 _To spend time with me._ John didn’t say it, but he saw Sherlock make the deduction. _Idiot,_ John thought. _I’ve always been a bloody idiot about him._ “Yeah, why in the world. Stupid. I’m really sorry.”

Sherlock grew serious. “I’m not. I’m glad Archie asked me to look into this and... that I need your help. Clearly I still need it for headers. Might we do this again sometime?”

John swallowed hard and nodded. He trotted over to retrieve the ball. He’d think about that later, Sherlock needing his help and even wanting it. Later.

They transitioned to moving passes and traps. Night fell around them as they ranged across the green, kicking and running. John steadfastly refused Sherlock’s pleas to learn headers: “Let’s give your nose a break today. We’ll do it next time.”

Next time. There would be a next time.

When it was too dark and late to put it off any longer, they gathered their belongings and walked out of the park.

“That was amazing, Sherlock. You’re a natural.”

“You think so?”

“So much that I kicked you in the face, right? In no time you’re gonna want a proper knockabout. I could invite Lestrade and some of our football mates, and Harry’s got a group she plays with. It’d have to be a weekend, though.”

Sherlock took his time replying. “Perhaps not so much all at once, John. Let’s go slowly.”

“Sure, of course. However you want it.”

Sherlock smiled. He was glad of the shadows.

“You’re going to be sore tomorrow, you know,” John said.

“A price I’ll pay every time.”

John nodded. He was glad of the shadows.


End file.
